


Take the Long Way Home

by karalovesallthegirls



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternative Season 5, F/F, Kid Fic, two idiots raise a kid together
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2020-12-17 03:37:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21047672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karalovesallthegirls/pseuds/karalovesallthegirls
Summary: What if, after shooting Lex and learning Kara's secret, Lena discovered another of her brother's projects - a half-human, half-Kryptonian? What if she did the only thing that she could, grabbed him and ran?And what if Kara did everything in her power to try and get them back?--an alternate season 5 of sorts





	1. baby, let's go get lost

**Author's Note:**

> the final chapter of WNTTAK is still coming, but as I said on my tumblr I accidentally burned myself out on that story and needed to take an emotional break. Part of that break is this story, which was posted in three separate ask responses on my blog that I've combined/expanded a bit for here. I really like this universe I'm building and plan to keep going in it.

Things are finally going Kara’s way. She defeated Lex Luthor and all his little minions, she cleaned up the messes the Children of Liberty left behind. Everything is in perfect order except the biggest, most terrifying thing: Lena still doesn’t know.

It’s not that Kara hasn’t wanted to tell her, she’s just been so busy! She had to take the dog to the vet, she had to help the elderly man across the street sort his recycling, she had to organize her spice cabinet. She’s been busy! But it’s time now, she knows, and with a heart full of terror and hope, she goes to Lena’s penthouse and knocks on the door.

A stranger answers.  
  
“Hi there,” they say, smiling like they’re the one who is supposed to be there. “The showing isn’t until tomorrow. We’re still cleaning everything out.”  
  
It doesn’t make sense, what they say, because this is Lena’s house. Lena’s impeccable; there shouldn’t be anything to clean. They shouldn’t be showing anything.  
  
“Can I speak to Lena?” she asks. The person smiles apologetically.  
  
“I’m sorry, the seller has asked to be left out of the dealings. I’m her point of contact for the condo selling.”

Every answer creates more questions, it seems.

“She’s selling? Where is she living now?” Kara asks, and they just shrug. There’s no answer for her, no information at all. Kara tries to call her then, but all the numbers she has for her just ring endlessly with no voice mail attached. 

Lena is gone.

It gets worse: she learns so enough that Lena sold CatCo at a huge loss, that she just threw it into the hands of the first offer she seemed to get. She put L-Corp under a trust and sold nearly all her National City properties. Her forwarding address is a PO Box in Metropolis that no one seems to check.

_Lena is gone._  
  


* * *

  
It takes her months to find her, nearly a year. She kept searching long after the rest of the world gave up on finding the final lost Luthor. (_Kara never gave up, Kara barely slept, all she could do or think or feel was ‘where is Lena?’) _

Everyone told her to move on - it was very clear Lena never wanted to be found, that she went to great lengths to erase every trail that might lead someone to wherever it is she’s hiding. After Lex’s return, it makes sense she would want to start over. She wanted a clean slate, that much was obvious, but something inside of Kara couldn’t accept it. Lena wouldn’t just vanish like that, never like that. She would have said something. She would have let Kara help her.

So instead Kara searched and searched and searched and, after far too many months, she found her.

She found her in a fortified cabin deep in a mountainous region in Europe, packed in tight behind dense trees and electric fences set to kill. She found her heartbeat, found the soft tune she’s humming under her breath while she cooks a vegetable stir fry in a well-seasoned cast iron.

She found her, she found her_, she found her._

In retrospect, she could have approached the situation in a more thoughtful, cautious way. Perhaps announced her presence with a knock or a call from outside. Something to let Lena know she was a friend, knocking on the door of her heavily guarded home. Instead she barreled in through her door like a tornado, so overwhelmed at the sight of her long-lost friend that she didn’t think to consider how that might play out.

The second she made it through the door a number of things occurred at once: an alarm sounded loud, bright red lights flashed, and she got a face full of sizzling hot vegetables and a frying pan. It dents around her face and she stands there, hair soaked in still sizzling oil, grinning dopily at her terrified friend because _Lena is alive_ and nothing else matters.

Lena does not seem to share that sentiment, of course - she stares at Kara like she’s the last thing she ever wanted to see.

“Supergirl,” she says, voice tight, “how are you here? You shouldn’t be here, you have to leave.” Lena moves to a screen on the wall and with a few presses deactivates the flashing lights and alarm. She shoves at Kara, tries to walk her back out the door, but Kara’s still so shocked at the sight of her she forgets to even nudge back.

“Lena,” she says, voice dripping in desperate joy, “I’ve been looking for you for so long. I’m so-”

She’s cut off by a sudden shrill screech, though rather than another alarm it seems more human. She glances towards the wall blocking her from the rest of the house, but she can’t see anything. The walls are lead-lined.

Lena stares at her with terrified eyes, moves to grab at her again like she can stop her, but Kara is too captivated by the sound. She moves past her, back into the cabin until she finds a - 

A child’s room.

It’s softly lit and sparsely decorated, just a light and a crib, inside of which sits a small black-haired toddler screaming his head off.

Lena rushes past Kara to scoop the child up, to hold him close and hum uncomfortably until his screams fade into silence. He presses his face against her neck and sighs.

“The alarm must have woken him,” she says, like that’s all she could think to say. Kara is just dumbfounded. Her voice shakes when she speaks.

“Lena- you, you have a -”

Lena shakes her head, sharp, and looks at her like she’s deciding something. Whatever she sees in Kara’s face must convince her to speak.

“He’s… he’s Lex’s.” She says it like it’s a half truth, like she’s holding back. All Kara can think about is how blue his eyes are. How much he looks like Kal-El did when he was small.

“His name,” she’s so careful with her words, like every one shared is a terror, “is Conner.”  
  


* * *

  
It’s near impossible for Lena to get rid of her after that.

Kara spends as long as she can with her, trying to get any information out of her that she can, but all Lena will do is rock the baby and stare out the window. She has so many questions that have built up over the months and still Lena has nothing to say to her.

Eventually, terribly, Kara’s earpiece alerts her to an incident she needs to attend to and with great reluctance she has to leave.

“Don’t tell anyone,” Lena begs, finally speaking. Kara just nods.   
  


* * *

  
She comes back five hours later to find the safe house ransacked, like they were in a hurry to pack and escape.

It takes her another two months to find them again, this time in the Caribbean hiding away on an island that technically does not exist. Kara has the self-awareness to knock instead of barreling into the home this time.

“Why are you running?” Kara says into the barrel of the gun aimed her way the second the door opens. Lena just looks annoyed to see her again and lowers her weapon with an agitated sigh.

“Why won’t you leave me alone?” She asks in return before turning to go inside. She leaves the door open, though, so Kara takes it as permission to follow inside.

This one is not as neat as her first safehouse. It’s strewn with toys and clothes and newspaper clippings, and what seems to be mashed bananas are spewed across the floor. Lena collapses on the couch with a groan, placing her gun aside so that she can rest her face in her hands, and Kara takes a tentative seat beside her.

“Well, when someone important to you vanishes in thin air with a baby they suddenly inherited, it makes sense to be concerned.” Lena looks up at her with a sharp glare.

“And why would you care about me, Supergirl? We weren’t exactly friends now, were we?” 

Kara can feel the fish floundering face she’s undoubtedly making, can see how Lena scoffs at her stutters. Lena continues,

“I’m not in National City anymore. I’m not even doing anything bad, I’m just trying to stay off the radar. You don’t need to worry about me. I’m not your responsibility anymore.” 

Kara plays with her hands nervously, her stomach roiling with concern.

“You’re not a responsibility, Miss Luthor. I’m just worried about you, and- and Conner.” 

And at that she reaches into a hidden pocket in her suit and pulls out a plush toy, small and fuzzy, shaped like the family sigil of the House of El. She holds it out to Lena who makes no move to grab it, instead just eyeing it wearily. After a moment, Kara places it on the table. 

They sit together for a while, not talking, until again Kara is called away.

“Will you be here when I come back? Or will you run again?” 

Lena looks so worn out, so drained beyond her abilities, and she shakes her head.

When Kara comes back the next day, she finds Conner in Lena’s lap chewing on the super sigil, gurgling happily.  
  


* * *

  
Kara keeps coming back. 

Lena doesn’t explicitly give her permission, but she also doesn’t turn her away, so Kara feels like she’s okay so long as she treads lightly. It’s painfully obvious how out of her depth Lena is in this.

Every other day like clockwork she appears, sometimes for a few minutes during her lunch break and sometimes for hours after work. She brings baby clothes, small toys, big books with colorful pictures and beautiful adventures. She brings Lena stories, mostly, about what’s happening in the world she’s left behind. Childcare in exile is an isolating experience, apparently.

She mostly helps around the house, cleaning up baby messes or cooking meals. So familiar with the pristine CEO Lena Luthor, Kara finds herself shocked and endeared to meet this new version of her old friend. They exist in their own world somehow, just her, Lena, and a baby. It stops feeling weird and starts feeling precious, like a secret she must keep.

It’s two months in when Lena trusts her enough to be alone with him while she does laundry, though she calls to them constantly from the other room. It feels like she’s scared Kara may scoop him up and jet away at any moment. She’s so, so afraid. That fear fades with more frequent visits, fades until Lena willingly goes to nap while Kara and Conner play. It’s progress, which is so funny to consider when they still barely talk to each other beyond pleasantries and news updates. Things are some kind of normal, as tenuous as it is stable.

Then Conner punches a hole through a stone table and giggles with the shards in his hand.

She doesn’t mean to wake Lena with a scream but, in her defense, she didn’t expect a toddler to punch through stone. 

Lena comes flying out of the bedroom wielding a massive knife (did she sleep with it under her pillow?), eyes confused face covered in sleep marks, and Kara holds the still laughing child up to her and shouts,

“He’s Kryptonian, isn’t he? He’s my cousin’s.” Because she suspected for so long, but she had convinced herself it was her mind playing tricks, making her see the baby she didn’t raise in the face of this one. But human babies just don’t punch holes into things. Lena moves to pull him from her hands and pulls him tight to her. Says nothing, just looks afraid. Kara has tears in her eyes.

“How could you not tell me?” She asks, and Lena laughs in a shaky burst.

“Let’s not play the secrets game here,” she says, voice shaking eyes wet, “you haven’t exactly been honest with me… Kara.” 

Kara has to sit down hard at that, overwhelmed by the force of it all.

Just like that, their situation became a hell of a lot more complicated.


	2. I will be here, don't you cry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena finds a baby and does her best

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think child birth and newborns are pretty gross, and that's gonna reflect in this chapter

She goes numb after he says it. Just collapses inward, the walls of her psyche crashing like dominos in her heart.

_Kara Danvers is Supergirl. _

She stays frozen there with the body longer than she should. Almost like she expects him to keep talking, to keep spouting his poison at her. It’ll never feel real, him being dead. Lex has always been a force beyond mere mortal limits. If anyone can defy death it’s him. 

Yet he never rises. He lays there in his ever-growing pool of blood and she stays there with him, crying. 

Everything she has to believe in, the life she’s built, are all lies. There is nothing true in her world, not even the friends she’s come to treasure. Everyone knew and no one told her.

A cold certainty falls over her then, an understanding of what is to come. She saves the video file of her best friend’s betrayal, scans the majority of Lex’s hard drives to an isolated cloud drive only she can access, and sets his bunker to self-destruct.

  
Before it can finalize, however, an alert pops up red and flashing:

INCUBATION STILL IN PROGRESS

TERMINATE EXPERIMENT C0N-3R?

Y/N 

She stares at it without comprehension for a few beats, the flashing text matching her pulsating headache. Finally, with great hesitation, she cancels. It’s best to know exactly what she’s destroying before she does it, so she scans his records until she can figure out where in the facility this experiment is and then go find it. She assumes it’s something biological, probably some weaponized strain of a long-dead disease Lex could use for laughs and mass destruction. Instead, when she arrives she finds something even more horrific: a child.  
  
Or not quite, though the timer on the outside of its life support device suggests it’s close. Less than an hour remains. It looks almost like a prop from some low budget alien horror movie, just a shriveled-up prune of a body floating in bright green goo. She can make out its tiny hands and legs that curl inward, wrapped around the monstrous mechanical cord connecting it to its cold motherboard. Its face is scrunched in tight, nightmarish, like it’s trapped in some stressful inner battle it’s ill-equipped to face. 

Facing a situation she cannot comprehend, she does the only thing she can think to do – she researches. Lex may think his security is strong, but Lena’s stronger. It takes no time for her to find out all she can on the creature in the case. She finds pages of notes detailing the failures that came before – C0N-1R and C0N-2R, two attempts at genetic creation that ended disastrously. Lex recorded his ramblings as video essays, talking about how his time on Earth is limited but his genius should not be, how he’s creating himself a legacy that will finish the work he has begun. How his creation will change everything.  
  
“I’ve taken the greatest genetic traits of the Kryptonian and combined them with the greatest humanity has to offer, and now, after trial and error, it’s coming to fruition.”  
  
She checks his notes and rolls her eyes at the genetic parents listed: KRYPTONIAN SUBJECT (C) & HUMAN SUBJECT (L. LUTHOR).

“Greatest humanity has to offer,” she reads with a laugh. Classic Lex. Always the egomaniac.

Her stomach roils with disgust the more she reads, and she finds herself falling back into the chair with a groan. It’s like every new thing she learns about her brother is more grotesque than the last. _It’s good that he’s dead_, she thinks, and almost believes it.  
  
A light flashes suddenly then and, much to her horror, she realizes the countdown has reached its end. With a loud snap the goo surrounding Lex’s creation sucks away, suctioned off until the creature is left shivering on the metal bottom like a fish flung from the sea. Its face is barely visible, still cocooned in the slime, and its left squirming as if trying to breathe. With great trepidation, she grabs a lab coat from a wall hook and approaches. She’s half terrified the thing might rip her arm off if she touches it. Still, she wipes at its face to clear away mucus and glowing green goo. Seeing it still continue to struggle, she lifts it up and pats it on the back and the creature spits out with a weak cough, clearing its mouth at last.

Then, with its first real breath, it screams.  
  
“Oh God,” Lena says, holding the tiny thing out in horror while it wails, “oh God oh God.”

This might be the first time in Lena’s life she’s ever held a baby (human or otherwise) and she can already tell this is off to a great start. Its cry is so loud and so deeply pathetic and she feels such panic taking root inside her. She wraps it up tight in the lab coat, wiping at the slime still clinging to its face with a sleeve. She holds it close to her in its improvised swaddle and hums in a frantic sort of tune feeling all the world out of her depth. But somehow, miraculously, her terrible attempts to sooth work, and the creature’s cry dies down to a sad sniffling whine until finally it seems to calm into quiet.  
  
“There we go,” she whispers, wiping soft strokes along its face. “You’re okay. We’re okay.”

Slowly, the baby opens its eyes.  
  
It has the bluest eyes she’s ever seen.  
  
“Hi there,” she says, soft and quiet. The baby blinks up at her in wonderment, and she realizes she is the first thing this tiny life has ever seen. It’s horrific and terrifying and she feels like she’s trapped in a fever dream.  
  
Before she can fully process what is happening, a noise alerts her to a message on the main screen. An email has arrived from a foreign name she does not recognize with the text, “Our system has notified us of the successful completion of Project C0N-3R. Our team is in route for retrieval.”  
  
A hot flash of terror falls over her, and she scrolls quickly up through the previous email exchange. She sees where Lex agreed to sell C0N-3R to this entity so long as he had regular access. How he was going to create more C0N-#Rs, a whole army of halflings to help bring about his new world order. How they could use the clone however they see fit, mold him into whatever war machine they want to so long as Lex maintained his ideological level of control.

How once the gestation was complete, they could come and take the creature immediately to begin its upbringing.

She doesn’t have a lot of time to think after that.  
  
She ends up laying the creature on the floor while she rushes about, gathering what she can. She triple checks that she has downloaded all of the information she can on Lex’s project, then does another scan to ensure there are no other horrors incubating within and again sets the building to self-destruct.

With a slimy newborn wrapped in a lab coat and Lex’s Lexosuit firmly encasing her, she jets away mere minutes before the island implodes.  


* * *

  
Time blurs.

She recalls moving money quickly to her untraceable accounts. Selling CatCo and putting L Corp under a trust. Taking the child to the first off-grid Luthor owned property she can think of and placing it on the floor again, with pillows holding it steady in its damp, lab coat swaddle.  
Locking herself in the bathroom to sob on the floor. She allows herself seven minutes to wallow before pulling it together. There was no time to mourn her situation, not while she still lived it. She had to act. 

They go from one safe house to the next after that. Money keeps them moving safely, keeps food deliveries, baby gear, and nutritional formula coming, but it doesn’t answer the questions only a dead man could. It doesn’t stop the nagging fear that the people who bought the creature will know it still lives, will want it back. It didn’t change the fact that she now, somehow, had a small baby to care for.

Childcare is not anything she had ever done nor sought to do. Lena had no interest in passing on whatever traumas she knew she carried, and the idea that she may one day act like Lilian towards a helpless creature fed her nightmares. She so rarely interacted with children that, on those rare occasions in which it was unavoidable, it always felt more like interacting with a strange wild animal encountered in nature; cautious, careful, and a good bit fearful.

Yet now overnight she went from never interacting with a child on her own to having a small, half-alien creature fully, uncontrollably dependent on her. It cried, it pooped, it stared at her with eyes too sharp for a creature so small.

It was a boy, she knew, but it didn’t feel… human. It didn’t feel comfortably identified as anything other than a creation, an amalgamation. A science experiment on steroids. This was a creature that had never existed before, never should have existed at all, and she had somehow found herself its caretaker. The burden was almost unbearable. She wanted to scream and cry and throw things, but the creature already does that for her. It’s shocking how something so small can cause such chaos.

Lena has a crash course on baby maintenance. They are remarkably similar to a pet, she thinks, though she’s never had one of those either. Regardless, they’re exceptionally needy. It’s always hungry, always. It demands attention every moment, and cries if she tries to focus on anything that isn’t it. The creature wants to be held at all times. Any attempts by Lena to leave it alone for even a few moments are met with the sharpest of cries, so much that Lena finds herself having to bring the baby carrier with her into the bathroom to shower. It clings to her with its little hands, always grabbing and pulling and jabbing, and it’s so frustrating she wants to scream. But again, that’s the creature’s responsibility.  
  
It won’t stop screaming.  
  
Every night, every morning, every second of every day, it screams.  
  
“I don’t know what you want,” she nearly shouts through her exhausted tears. “I don’t understand.” And, try as it might, the creature can’t tell her.

When it’s related to bodily functions, she usually figures it out by smell alone, but sometimes the creature is hungry, or sleepy, or it doesn’t like the way the material of its specially delivered onesie fits, or it’s still angry about existing at all and needs her to feel that regret, too.  


* * *

  
Her deliveries are never brought to the house. She doesn’t want anyone to have their address, to be able to find them, so she makes a nerve-wrecking trip to the nearest town every few days for the deliveries of their goods. She’ll often have one of the local workers load up the van she’s been using and then drive it around for an additional hour just to be sure she isn’t followed. The creature will stay in its car seat covered with a blanket to ensure no one sees it usually, but today is a fussy sort of day and it refuses to nap or be far from Lena. Eventually she gives in and just holds it, rocking it awkwardly in her arms while the workers work.  
  
Much to her horror, one of them takes notice of them and approaches. He smiles at Lena, then smiles even wider when the creature catches his eye.

“Hey little guy,” the man says to it, then looks to Lena. “What’s his name?”  
  
It’s been three weeks now and it’s the first time she’s spoken to anyone, and, more importantly, the first time anyone else has interacted with the creature. The creature without a name, without an identity. Good Lord, she can’t call it the creature. They’ll call social services on her. Her mind flashes briefly in a panic to all her documents on it, mentally scanning the file like something might jump out. Then, she remembers. _Project_ _C0N-3R._  
  
“Conner,” she says like a question_._ “His name is Conner.”  
  
The delivery man, obviously oblivious to her struggles, smiles wide.  
  
“Well then it’s nice to meet you, Conner,” he says, gently grabbing its little fist and giving it a soft shake, and the creature – Conner – blinks up at him with those big blue eyes.  
  
Later, after the deliveries have been brought in and unpacked, Lena sits the child up on the bed and just stares. It stares back, slumped over its own chubby body, eyes watchful and innocent.  
  
“Holy shit,” she says quietly. “You’re an actual person.”  
  
As if in agreement, Conner babbles nonsensically and shoves his fist in his mouth.  


* * *

  
Something shifts after that. She doesn’t become a natural caretaker overnight, not by any means, but something noticeably changes. She looks at Conner and sees something more than Lex’s final experiment. She see’s something she must protect. 

Someone.

During those precious moments when Conner sleeps, Lena researches more than just Lex’s notes. She studies everything she can on babies, and the information is… overwhelming, to say the least.

Some sources will say doing something will irrevocably damage a child, while others say not doing it will damage just the same. She should expose him to fresh air and sunlight, she should lock him away from nature forever. She has to sing and talk to him or the baby’s brain won’t develop, if she doesn’t constantly self-monitor her slightest action will cause lasting, lifelong trauma. Every move she makes has to be perfect, apparently, or she’ll screw him up.  
  
“I hate to tell you this,” she says to him where he lays in his baby carrier, watching her, “but you’re gonna be really messed up if you stay stuck with me.”  
  
He blows a small spit bubble from his mouth in response.  


* * *

  
Things become more manageable.  
  
She starts to learn the different meanings behind his cries: when he needs to be changed, his cry goes high and fast. When he needs to be held it’s like a soft whimper, when he’s sleepy a cranky huff. He has his own language and she’s slowly but surely becoming fluent.  
  
They fall into a rhythm, she and Conner. He’s still mostly immobile, so most of their time is spent with him wrapped up and watching her as she studies or cooks or writes. Somehow, his cries will fade if he’s close to her. Like he doesn’t realize how toxic she actually is, like she’s something good to cling to. Things are actually okay, in their own twisted up way. They’re doing fine.  
  
Then her door blows in one day and she cracks her best cast iron against the side of Kara’s head.  
  
Kara. Kara is Supergirl, Supergirl is Kara.

Kara is _here._  
  
“Supergirl,” she says, and her chest burns at the pure joy in Kara’s eyes. The relief. “How are you here? You shouldn’t be here, you have to leave.”

All she can think about is the baby, the secret child no one can know about, how desperately she needs to get rid of the one person on Earth she never wanted to see again.

And like the absolute jackass that she is, Kara keeps grinning at her, says her name like she’s something precious.  
  
Then Conner cries, and she can see understanding dawning on the super asshole’s face, and she realizes how much worse things are about to become.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My goal was for this chapter to go through and beyond the first chapter but I couldn't stop writing and I realized I was about to have a 5k chapter and I would just rather break them up and do them in smaller (but more consistent) bursts. I'm so hooked on this universe


	3. take strength from those that need you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The girls talk and Conner meets some new people

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm deep into the hardest, most involved semester of grad school and writing this was one of the ways I cope with that

The silence that follows is terrible and heavy. How could it not be? Lena _knows_. She knows Kara is Supergirl without her even telling her. Lena knowing has always been Kara’s greatest fear, and now it looks like Lena knew all along.

She’s living a nightmare.

“So you… you know,” Kara finally says, slow and painful, perched on Lena’s living room couch. “About me.”

Lena just laughs bitterly.

“I know exactly what you are, Kara Danvers, if that even is your name. Although I wonder, do aliens even have names?”

Kara actually flinches at that, shrinking back into the couch cushion for protection.

“Of course,” she says, quiet, and she can see in Lena’s face the briefest flash of remorse. Like she didn’t mean to say something so hurtful, so dehumanizing. _Not that she thinks of me as human anymore_. Still, she says this in her quiet words: “my name is Kara. On Earth and on Krypton. I’ve always been Kara.”

Lena seems to take a second to formulate a response, obviously shaken by the sincerity in Kara’s voice, the hurt. Her words are biting even still.

“Yes, you’ve always been Kara, haven’t you, Supergirl?” she says with a snarl, voice dripping with unprocessed pain, “you lied to me for years! Years! Knowing what betrayal means to me. Knowing how much it would hurt!”

Her eyes mist over in unshed tears as she shouts down at Kara, all the pain and betrayal leaking out of her every pour. Only her shout is too loud, and almost immediately Conner begins to wail in her arms. Kara moves forward instinctively to help but Lena flinches back and pulls Conner close.

“No!” she says, then speaks quieter. “Leave, Supergirl. We don’t need you.”

Lena moves with a sharp finality, bouncing Conner against her hip and turning to face away, tall and stoic. Conner’s teary face peeks back at Kara over Lena’s shoulder and all at once a desperation builds up in Kara’s chest. She finds herself chasing after them. She can’t lose Lena again, not again. Especially not now that Conner is here. She can’t lose another Kryptonian baby.

“He’s Kryptonian,” she says, because this at least is something she can argue. Lena gives her a cold side-eye as she bounces said baby on her hip. “I can help you with him. I can- please, Lena. I know it’ll be hard for you to forgive me for this, but- “

“You broke my heart,” Lena cuts in in a quiet, distant voice. “I could never forgive you.”

Kara swallows repeatedly, like the motion will be enough to hold back the onrush of tears building in her eyes, and she nods disjointedly.

“I understand. I know I can’t… make up, for it. I can’t fix it. But I can help with _this_. Please, let me help you.” She reaches out towards Lena and she can see Lena leaning towards her, can feel her hesitant approach. She knows Lena, knows she’s been so alone now for so long.

“You don’t have to do this alone,” Kara says with her genuine earnestness, and she can practically see Lena’s walls crumbling.

“I won’t forgive you, and- and I won’t let you take him,” Lena says, and a wave of relief washes over so powerfully Kara feels tears rush to her eyes that she's quick to blink away.

“I won’t try to,” Kara says, even as the thought _take him_ begins to sift into the cracks of her brain. There is a Kryptonian child now, one who may be as strong as any other Kryptonian, and he’s in the care of a runaway Luthor. She wouldn't be able to stop her from taking him. “I just want to help. Can I do that?”

Slowly, like it’s painful to do it, Lena nods in defeat.  
  
It's even harder to leave them this time. There is still so much to discuss, and the air around them still weighs so heavy with unspoken grief, but when the bluetooth communicator kicks in she knows she has no choice but to leave them.  
  
"We'll still be here when it's done," Lena says through gritted teeth. "We can finish our conversation."

Kara knows her, she can see the strain radiating through every fiber of her being demanding that they leave.  
  
"I would really, really like that," Kara says, and then blasts off.

It takes longer than she'd like to wrap things up in National City. It's partly her fault; she's anxious and in a hurry, so she tries to rush things along, which works fine if you're trying to knock out a job assignment before a deadline but not so good when you're fighting off a massive glob alien with body parts that explode when it gets mad.

Needless to say by the time she actually gets back to Lena's hideaway it's deep into the morning hours and she halfway wants to just fly back home and come back when the sun's up. But Lena told her to come back after she was finished, and if there's one thing Kara's not gonna do it's decline an invite from Lena.

So she finds herself standing in front of that door she'd left hours before, infinitely more terrified. She shakes her hands and does a little hop, huffing out quiet _okay okay okay_s as she moves through a little nervous jig. She can do this. Of course she can do this, it's just Lena. It's _just_ Lena.

With one final deep breath, she steps forward and knocks on the door only for it to give beneath her hand. It was open. It's four in the morning, and the front door is open.

Suddenly struck with worry, Kara pushes the door open all the way only to reveal chaos. Furniture is overturned, plates lay cracked on the floor. Someone was here and in a hurry to leave.

“Come on, Lena,” she says low under her breath,“not this again.” _It's the same as before, isn't it?_ she thinks. 

Only, as she realizes with a slow-growing horror, it’s not the same this time at all. There's a body on the floor, a man dressed in military gear. A new terror takes hold then and she rushes to Conner's room only to find more bodies, more men groaning or silent in piles all around. Where Conner's crib had previously stood now stands a pile of charred wood, splintered and burnt to a crisp, and blood.  
  
Conner and Lena are gone.  
  


* * *

  
  
She thought it was Kara.

That’s why she opened the door, why she’s stupid for one terrible, life-ruining second. Kara makes her stupid, she knows that deep down, so when she heard a knock on the door her only thought was _Kara's back._  
  
That's why she opened it. She heard a knock and she opened the door, and all at once actual reality came crashing back in on her. The door blasts back into her nearly ripping off the hinges, and she's thrown across the room with the force of it. Her ears are ringing and there's smoke everywhere and the only words her scattered mind can form are _fire_ and _Conner._ As if on cue, the ringing in her ears subside enough for her to hear beneath the chaos Conner crying out from his crib, crying for her, and she finally realizes that the fire isn't an accident, that the door has been blown open by heavily armed men rushing around her living room. They're yelling things she can't understand, stomping in thick heavy boots through broken glass, and behind it all Conner screams, calling out to her.

She pulls herself to her feet only to be knocked down again with a rifle butt to the face. She's left dazed on the floor with men standing over her. Her face throbs.

“Find it and kill it,” she hears the man say, and she realizes with rolling disgust that they're heading towards the baby's screams. Again she tries to stand and again she's knocked down, this time with a boot pressing into her back.  
  
"I don't wanna kill you, but we got a job to do," they tell her, and she sobs into the carpet. Men with guns move into the baby's room and she can hear him crying - _he needs me,_ she thinks, and it's torture - and she can't contain the desperate scream that escapes her when she hears the rapid fire of gunshots.

The baby isn't crying anymore. Lena hopes they kill her too, hopes she can grab a gun somehow and blow them all away. She pushes back against the boot, trying to press up with all her might, and the man presses her back down with a sharp kick at the same time a body flies from Conner's room.

It's one of the gunmen.

More gunfire, a scream, and another man flies halfway through a wall this time, head coated in plaster and blood. The men holding her down abandon her to go too, and their gunfire ends in screams as she can see the previously dark walls of Conner's room light up in bursts of bright magenta glow.

Lena pushes herself up with slow, gasping breaths, the air still knocked out from the boot before.   
  
She stumbles through her destroyed living room with only Conner's name in her mind, repeating endlessly to the beat of her racing heart, only to find him there, whole and alive, and floating.  
  
He's floating in the center of the room, his small body hung weightless and unhurt in the air, his eyes glowing that bright reddish purple with color-tinged tears streaming down his tiny face. Beneath him lay the broken bodies of the men sent here to destroy him. But they didn't, she realizes with a hiccuping laugh. He's bullet proof, he's safe. _He's safe, he's safe, he's safe_, the chant repeats now in her heart.

Her desperate laugh catches his attention, though, and Conner’s head jerks towards her. His eyes snap to her even as they stay lit and unseeing, and when she moves to reach for him his tiny fist takes hold of some of her fingers. It's tight and inhuman and fast. The pain of it knocks her to her knees and she's left dangling above the ground, held up only by the fingers held tight in the hand of an infant. She feels the bones snapping and twisting in his tiny fist and within a second she realizes he might rip them off. In horror and pain she gasps out,

“Conner, it’s me,” another pained gasp as his tiny fist tightens its hold on her fingers, “Baby, it’s me. It’s me, I’m here. You're okay, we're okay.”

His head tilts at the sound of her voice and slowly the coating of light over his eyes slide away. He drops from the air suddenly, falling to the ground and yanking her down with him until they're both in a painful heap. His grip loosens from its crush and he looks down at her mangled fingers with a confused, terrified expression. He looks up at her with terror and tear-filled eyes, his lower lip wobbling horribly before the dam finally breaks and he lets out a sob. He falls into her, clinging tight and crying into her shirt, and she rests her hand on the back of his head while pointedly ignoring the ever-increasing throb of her fingers.

They sit like that for too long, wrapped in each other in a room full of bodies.  
  
He cries until he doesn't, and she soon has a sleeping Kryptonian in her arms and fingers that have swollen to twice their usual size.   
  
She holds him with her good arm as she maneuvers the apartment, trying to grab things but finding it near impossible. She has a go bag packed for them, of course, and it's easy enough to get that over her shoulder. At one point it's too much and she has to lay him down for a just a second, just long enough to get a sling situated to hold him against her chest, but just that one moment without contact has her heart rate skyrocketing, her hands shaking, her breathing nearly tripling in speed. She's so scared to blink, that he might vanish during that split moment her eyes are closed.  
  
But he doesn't vanish. He sleeps and waits for her, and soon enough she has all that she can handle packed. She puts him in his sling and nearly cries out in pain from the press on her fingers, and with one last look at what had just started to feel like a home, she disappears into the night.


End file.
